ADWD Release July 12th!

Since we don't want another one of these (ADWD- October release?), I'm closing this thread and we'll either reopen it or start a new ADWD thread when an official announcement from George hits the intarwebs.

That thread was such a beast to moderate and keep track of so we hope you understand the reasons for us being strong-armed on the topic.

At GRRM's signing in LA, he stated that the announcement he was going to make was going to be about ADWD. His illness meant that he lost a week (I make that a bit more than a week though, so maybe he was rounding down) and hadn't delivered the book. The announcement will still come 'soon'. He also noted in an interview at the TCA that ADWD was close to delivery.

His latest blog post states that he is home and about to get back to work, but on a slower schedule on his doctor's recommendation. In that case, I would not expect an imminent announcement (within days), but maybe a few weeks to a month or two out (bearing in mind that tripling any estimate by GRRM for how long any job will take might be a good rule of the thumb).

Yes, it was tiring, and I faded a lot faster than before my hospital stay... but it gave my spirits a huge boost to become George the Writer once again, after the dehumanizing experience of being George the Patient.

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Apparently it wasn't so tiring that he couldn't party after the book signing (where many readers waiting in line suddenly got the message that Martin had a plane to catch).

"The Writer" - I thought that was someone who actually, you know, writes. But if partying and hanging around with actors and actresses is being a Writer, then I'd like to be one too.

"George the Patient"? What does he know of PATIENCE

I'm sorry we had to cut off inscriptions halfway through the queue, but it was the only was to make certain everyone got at least one book signed.

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How about admitting WHY you cut off inscriptions halfway through?

I have the best fans in the world.

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If those three first books hadn't been so incredibly good...he'd have none left.

It will be published next week, under the pseudonym "Joe Abercrombie" and re-titled "The Heroes". All expected characters like Daenerys and Jon are scrapped, but the story will be out NEXT WEEK and it will be awesome.

This latest attempt to find something to blame GRRM for seems a little desperate, it has to be said.

1. GRRM has an appointment in Hollywood immediately after the signing, so he can't hang around. He tells this to the guys at the bookstore but not the reason why (since it's confidential meeting, I would hazard a guess with HBO or maybe with the people working on the Skin Trade movie project).

2. The guys at the bookstore somehow garble this into saying that GRRM is leaving to get on a plane.

3. If GRRM heard this, I guess that, rather than go through the tedium of correcting them, the end-result that he needs to be out of there on time is the same so what the hell? If he was out back, he may not have heard them (the PR system is most shops does not feed into the back offices).

4. He leaves on time, goes to the meeting, then meets up with other fans for a meet-up.

So what he is saying is that blogging DOES take time off of "A Dance with Dragons", contrary to the arguments of the three or four people still in a defensive position.

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No, that's what you think he's saying. Ask any number of full-time authors and they'll tell you that their day is structured - Wake up at X time, spend Y time answering e-mails, write for Z hours - and so forth. It's entirely possible that George sets aside a set amount of time per day/week for his blog, but he's decided to cut back on that time in order to get the book out.

If GRRM was originally planning to announce the finishing of the book at this gathering, I’m really glad he didn’t do it. For so long he has promised us that when he was finally finished he would first go and tell his wife, and then immediately post on his site that it was done. If he doesn’t announce it that way it would feel really wrong. That promise is the main reason I have checked his website so many times in the last 5 years, and I don’t want to feel like I’m(opposite off Neil Gaman quote).

The most frustrating part is that he was basically just as close to finishing it back in July!

He sounded really optimistic about it back then... and then everything came to a screeching halt because he went on vacation for a month, then went to Ireland for a few weeks, then came back and got sick. I honestly believe there's been very little progress in the last 6 months, and knowing how close he was to the finish line all that time has probably been driving him crazy.

The most frustrating part is that he was basically just as close to finishing it back in July!

He sounded really optimistic about it back then... and then everything came to a screeching halt because he went on vacation for a month, then went to Ireland for a few weeks, then came back and got sick. I honestly believe there's been very little progress in the last 6 months, and knowing how close he was to the finish line all that time has probably been driving him crazy.

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Maybe he writes it and thinks its perfect so blogs something hinting at it being finished. A few weeks passes and the manuscript is sent back with plot errors and such. And it happens over and over.

However I think its more likely its been done for months if not years, waiting for the HBO series to be ready. I can't blame the guy for that. It is a sound publicity and financial decision.

This latest attempt to find something to blame GRRM for seems a little desperate, it has to be said.

Desperate? I am not "finding something to blame him for"; I merely stated the fact that it was announced that he had a plane to catch, but he was going to that party. GRRM should be honest enough to correct it. He uses his Not A Blog to blame the disease for working less, but the doctors had no problem with him partying 'til late at night. I don't mind him partying with the BwwB, it just feels dishonest towards the readership who by now are pretty....desperate...to hear the magical words "It's done".

1. GRRM has an appointment in Hollywood immediately after the signing, so he can't hang around. He tells this to the guys at the bookstore but not the reason why (since it's confidential meeting, I would hazard a guess with HBO or maybe with the people working on the Skin Trade movie project).

2. The guys at the bookstore somehow garble this into saying that GRRM is leaving to get on a plane.

3. If GRRM heard this, I guess that, rather than go through the tedium of correcting them, the end-result that he needs to be out of there on time is the same so what the hell? If he was out back, he may not have heard them (the PR system is most shops does not feed into the back offices).

You are making up how it went down, so as an argument this doesn't work. *If* this was how it happened, GRRM could still make a proper apology on his blog, but he doesn't even mention that he did in fact go to said party.

4. He leaves on time, goes to the meeting, then meets up with other fans for a meet-up.

Trying to turn this into some grand conspiracy theory is bizarre.

It is not a conspiracy theory. I am merely calling the man out on yet another round of strange behavior. I never said he did it on purpose to anger fans - that would be a conspiracy theory.

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What do you know? Today he has regained the work hours lost to the Christmas disease. Expect "It's done" sometime during the day or maybe tomorrow.

I was just thinking that he lost a week during Christmas, maybe two, making it two weeks since he became better. If he cut in half his 12 - hour days to say 6 hours that's given him 78 hours to finish "A Dance with Dragons" - maybe not enough (I know how time flies when trying to write something useful), but at least he should be so near the finish line that we should (and by should I mean wish) expect an "It's done" within the next days. Of course, this is conjecture (is that what they call it?) just like Werthead making up the story of the signing in LA, but we have been expecting with utmost patience for years and years, it is time to demand.

As I said before, Martin did not leave the signing to go to the party, he left to go to a meeting. The meeting appears to have involved Melinda Snodgrass (who went with GRRM to the party afterwards). From that I strongly suspect this is something to do with the Wild Cards movie script they worked on a few years ago and has apparently seen some recent renewed interest (due to both the increased interest in superhero movies and GRRM's raised profile from the HBO deal).

So that was pretty much the situation. Yeah, the store got it wrong by saying it was a plane, but the amusing thing is that if GRRM had corrected them, it would have raised the fans' hopes ("Yay! He can sign all our books after all!") and then dashed them, and GRRM would now be being criticised for that ("The jerk! Why didn't he just not say anything?"). The reason GRRM has not commented on this is that is a mind-numbingly pedantic and trivial error that would not have had any practical impact if corrected.